Ambient office  =  104 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 131 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 132 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 121 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

        President Trump intends to meet with his Cabinet in the near future. They will be discussing recommendations from the U. S. Commerce Department (CD) that he received in April. The CD suggested that firm quotas be established on uranium imports because of national security. Major U.S. nuclear utilities have been warning Trump that it would be a bad idea of impose quotas on uranium imports from Canada and other global producers. They say that the result would be thousand of lost jobs and serious negative effects on nuclear power plants.
        Utility lobbyists for major nuclear utilities such as Exelon, Duke Energy and other owners nuclear power plants claim that establishing quotas on the quantity of uranium that the U.S. imports from international suppliers is “misguided”. They say that Trump should reject any such proposals. Meanwhile, uranium mining firms in the U.S. have petitioned for uranium quotas to protect jobs in the mining sector. These petitions reference trade provisions that are necessary for national security.
      The Ad-hoc Utility Group is an advocacy group for U.S. nuclear utilities. They claim that mining jobs that would be saved by uranium quotas would be few compared to jobs that would lost in the nuclear power industry. David Tamasi is the head of the AUG lobbying push against the uranium quotas. He estimates that about one hundred and fifty jobs will be lost in the uranium mining sector if quotas are not impose. If quotas are established, as many as a hundred thousand jobs could be lost at nuclear power plants.
       Tamas told an interviewer that he understands that the president has been trying to prevent the premature closure of both coal plants and nuclear power plants because of market factors. However, if uranium quotas are imposed, nuclear fuel will be more expensive, and this will cause more premature closures.
        Whatever action the CD has recommended to the President has not been made public. Tamasi said that he believed that the CD did not make a single recommendation but rather provided the President with a range of options from taking no action all the way to imposing quotas.
       A Cabinet meeting with the President had been scheduled for June 20th but was abruptly cancelled on June 19th. It has been speculated that the unexpected departure of Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan may have the reason that the original meeting was canceled. Shanahan would be expected to provide details on national security issues at any meeting involving quotas. The U.S. Department of Defense consumes a lot of uranium as fuel for nuclear propulsion.
       The Cabinet meeting with the President is now expect to take place next week. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in Washington, D.C. for bilateral meetings with the President. In view of the fact that Canada is the top foreign supplier of uranium to the U.S., it is expected that Trudeau will strongly oppose the imposition of quotas for uranium import. He will probably make the case that imposing quotas on Canadian uranium import will cause more damage to U.S. national security than not imposing quotas.

Ambient office  =  115 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 165 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 165 nanosieverts per hour

Pineapple from Central Market = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 131 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 121 nanosieverts per hour

        This week, an international security forum is being held in the Russian city of Ufa. At the forum, Russian officials claimed that terrorist groups are attempted to steal advanced weapons technology from Russian military facilities in Syria. According to the Russian hosts, at least one member of the U.S. National Security Council attended the meeting. The White House will not confirm that any U.S. official is attending the conference.
        Alexander Venediktov is the Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary. He told reporters before the event that “The Americans have been skipping our forum in the recent years. But this year we hope to see them at a meeting in Ufa. At least, they have confirmed the visit by one of the U.S. Security Council’s directors.”
       It has been announced that Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, will attend the conference. He has stated publicly that there will not be a military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran. He expressed the opinion that the U.S. was using military threats for political purposes. If both Iran and the U.S. send representative to the forum then it is at least possible that they could discuss the escalating tensions between the two countries. He said, “There will not be a military confrontation between Iran and America since there is no reason for a war. Accusing other countries has turned into a common practice among U.S. officials as they try to pressure other counties.”
        Yuri Kokov is the Russia’s Deputy Security Council Secretary. He told Forum attendees that, “A number of tendencies in the tactics of international terrorist organizations’ steps deserve special attention and analysis. First of all, this concerns the continued attempts to get access to data about the manufacturing of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, their increased attention to issues related to the use of pathogenic biological agents and toxic chemicals for terrorist purposes.” Kokov did not give any details about specific incidents.
       Kokov explained that terrorist groups have used a variety of methods including underwater attacks by swimmers and the use of minors. Kokov’s comments were focused only on the tactics of terrorist groups and not on any of the activities of state actors.
       There have been attacks on civilian targets in Syria which international observers have claimed were carried out by Syria with at least the tacit approval of the Russians. The Syrian government and Russian military representatives have claimed that these attacks were carried out by terrorists. In some cases, they have even gone so far as to accuse the U.S. and allied forces in Syria of staging that attacks to damage the international standing of Syria.
       In view of the occasional confusion over who exactly is carrying out attacks on civilian targets in Syria, international observers are justifiably skeptical about Russia’s claims of terrorist attempting to steal Russian military equipment. If the Russians and Syrians are behind some of the “terrorist” attacks, these claims of terrorist thefts would be a way to divert suspicion if Russian weapons are found to have been used in a “terrorist” attack.

Ambient office  =  122 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 129 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 142 nanosieverts per hour

Snow pea from Central Market = 143 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Filtered water = 82 nanosieverts per hour

        For decades, the international community has been confident that Israel has nuclear warhead and the means to deliver them. Up until this year, Israel has refused to make any public statement with respect to the existence of an Israeli nuclear arsenal.
        The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an international watchdog organization. It focuses on conflicts, the international arms trade and nuclear proliferation. The ISPRI issued a new report Monday that stated that Israel has an estimated one hundred nuclear warheads. This is more than earlier estimates.
        The SIPRI report gives the following information about Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Israel supposedly has thirty gravity bombs which can be dropped from Israeli fighter jets. They have another fifty warheads that can be delivered by land-based ballistic missiles. They also have an unknown number of nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles. These submarine launched missiles would give Israel a retaliatory capacity in case Israel was attacked first.
        The SIPRI report estimates that Israel possess between eighty and ninety nuclear weapons. The SIPRI report was unable to verify these estimates with the Israeli government. It has a long standing policy of refusing to comment on their nuclear weapons program. Israel describes this policy as “nuclear ambiguity.” The U.S. Nuclear Threat Initiative has estimated that Israel has refined enough weapons-grade plutonium to construct between one hundred and two hundred nuclear warheads. Of the nine nations with nuclear arsenals, Israel is one of five who have never signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This is an international treaty dedicated to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and achieving global nuclear disarmament.
       Benjamin Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of Israel. Last August, he threated to wipe out Israel’s enemies with nuclear weapons. Since then, Netanyahu and allies in the U.S. accused Iran of working on the development of nuclear weapons. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Israel have no evidence that Iran has any such weapons program.
       New information has also emerged about work at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, which houses the Dimona nuclear reactor. There are concerns about the safety of the Dimona reactor. Last week, there were arguments in an Israeli court that claimed that radioactive waste has leaked from the reactor on more than one occasion. The plaintiffs in the case say that information about these leaks was kept from some of the employees. One of those employees is suing the facility because he believes that these leaks gave him cancer.
       The trial over problems at Dimona have focused more attention on the aging reactor. It was estimated in an internal Israeli document several years ago that the Dimona reactor has over fifteen hundred known defects. There have been reports that the Israeli government has no intention of fixing or replacing the core of the Dimon reactor.
        The facility housing the reactor is only thirty miles south of Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel. This is a serious threat to citizens of Israel but the greatest threat is, of course, to the citizens of Dimona. They are predominantly Jews from Northern Africa who are regularly discriminated against by the government. There are also Palestinian villages in the area that are under threat.